9mo ago

Preserve Your Games with the Open Source Cartridge Reader

www.retronews.com

The Open Source Cartridge Reader (OSCR) is a versatile tool designed to help preserve video game cartridges and save data. Developed by Sanni and the community, this device allows users to back up ROM files and save games from a wide range of vintage consoles.

75 comments

Official site: https://www.cartreader.net/
- US$249.99 ready-built, for anybody curious. Not saying it's not worth that, but that will price a lot of people out of it.
  
  Me.
  I was like "oh cool!"
  And then I saw the price.
  
  Yeah if you can do it yourself it's about half that. Save the hero builds an older revision but it's also cheaper.
  
  Doesn't seem like a very "open source" price to me.
Better make a full copy of this project before Nintendo comes after it too.
Someone should buy this and then charge like $5 to backup someone's cartridge for them.
Too expensive for everyone to own
- Yeah seriously.
  Also are we not at a stage where most games have been dumped perfectly already?
  
  This is for preserving one’s own library, which makes emulation fully legal instead of the wink wink “legal” that many gamers find themselves in.
- I have one. Comment or DM me and we can work out the details.
  Very surreal to see your saves on a different device.
- I ended up making the post about this: https://lemmy.world/post/31870332
This is really cool, but I wonder how long it’ll last before they are bullied with legal threats.
- I think dumping your game cartridges is legal, otherwise you couldn't emulate games legally.
  
  The thing about legal threats is that they can work even if the theory they are based on isn't any good. Fee-shifting isn't always guaranteed, if it is available at all. Capital has already budgeted for its lawyers this year, have you?
  
  Nintendo sent a bunch of thugs to the home of an emulator developer last week, and made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Everything he did was legal, but that doesn’t stop Nintendo from literally threatening harm to your family.
  
  yes tiptoe around that eula
- Cartridge dumpers have existed for decades. They are 100% legal, just like any physical media player (VCR, DVD player...).
- They don’t have support for any recent Nintendo systems (not even the DS) so they’ll probably be fine.
  
  I don't think it matters for Big N. I got a cease and desist a long time ago for using a video game trademark in my website URI as a teen. I mean I could have fought it but it was enough to kill my spirit.
  Going to guess the creators aren't seeing this as their bread and butter and enough of a threat of a lawsuit can pretty quickly slow down/shut down a project.
  
  Recent Nintendo games are trivial to dump without specialized hardware. Modded consoles can do it.
At this point are there any cartridges on earth I couldn't find a torrent of in about 2 mins on Google? They'd have to be deliberately being kept for rarity.
- Probably not, but it does add a touch of legitimacy to the claim that emulators are for playing your own backed up games.
  
  Nintendo doesn't even care about that so tbh fuck em.
  
  Did that claim have any actual grounding in reality? Or is it just an urban legend that keeps persisting?
- Very few. However, this type of devices can also backup saved games.
- Yeah honestly, what is the point of these devices when literally every retro game ever already has a perfect 1:1 dump available for instant download all over the internet? Why are new cartridge dumping devices still being produced? Even the rarest of rare games have easily-obtainable ROMs available. Who are these meant for?
  
  There are still undumped games.
  This device can also backup saves.
This is neat!
In a just world, you could just download ROMs for free.
Honestly, as cool as this is, I just keep collections of downloaded entire game libraries like PS1, PS2, PSP, 3DS, NDS, GB, GBC, GBA, NES, SNES, etc.
I'm more interested in preserving my save games, which I can dump myself on my modded 3DS for 3DS and NDS games, plus my PSP I can just copy paste those save games from the memory card. Those are more what is really irreplacable. Everyone has my games, not everyone has my save games.
- Idk about this one but my GB/C/A dumper can do both the ROM and the save (well, no save on GB because there are no batts, but on the C and A it can.).
  I used it to back up my Pokemon Yellow cart, solder in a new batt, and put my save back on the cart.
  I assume this likely can do the same with at least most of those systems. But out of your listed systems GBC/A would be all you need as this doesn't seem to do disks but only carts, you could just get a dedicated GBC/A dumper for backing those up, idk if they still sell the Joey Jr but that's the one I use.
  
  Yeah, I could also use my DSLite to dump GBA saves at least. My GBC saves are unfortunately all long gone because the batteries dried up.
  It is really cool being able to dump save games, so if these multi-dumpers can do so, that's amazing.
That's very cool but the backup law really is only effective with drm free games on PC, your console can't play your backups and if Nintendo had their way even modifying your console to run backups would be illegal, but thankfully only Japan is a dystopia in that sense, for now.

75 comments